William (Vipont) de Vipont (abt. 1140 - abt. 1200)

Born about 1140 in West Lothian, Scotland

Descendants

Died about 1200 at about age 60 in Hardingstone, Northamptonshire, England

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Note that the birth and death years are only meant to give a rough indication.

Biography

This profile is about William II de Veteri Pont in Daniel Power's scheme, who was the father of Ivo de Vipont (d. 1239) and Robert de Vipont (d.1228), together with his wife Mathilde of Morville. Note that from a previous wife, Emma of Saint-Hilaire, William had already had three sons all named William!

William was an Anglo-Norman who had family connections to France, England and Scotland, but according to Power this particular branch needs to be distinguished from the main French family. This causes confusion because the two families used similar names.

This William's father was also named William, and this father appears to be the first of the family in Britain. According to historian Daniel Power:

The genealogy is exceptionally confusing since so many members were called William. The first recorded Anglo-Scottish William de Vieuxpont occurs in the reign of Malcolm IV (1153–65), both in Scotland and in the English lands of the kings of Scots (RRS, i, nos. 196, 205, 254, 260; ii, no. 5). A judgment in the court of Malcolm’s successor William the Lion (1165×70) restored all these lands to a William de Vieuxpont as his father had held them, which suggests that he was the first William’s son (RRS, ii, no. 84). This William (II) witnessed Scots royal acts until c.1197; by 1203 he had been succeeded in most of his Scottish lands by another William (III) and by 1205 at Alston by his son Ivo, to whom William III later also enfeoffed half of Hardingstone (Kelso Liber, i, no. 143; RRS, ii, no. 468; CRR, viii, 104–5, 152–3, 285; cf. Close Rolls 1251–1253, 445). The ‘William de Vieuxpont, eldest son of those whom William de Vieuxpont had by Lady Emma de Saint-Hilaire’ (1198×1214) was presumably William III, and is possibly the William filius Emme (fl. 1174) who appears in some royal acts. If so, he had two younger brothers and a son all called William and appears to have married Matilda de Sancto Andrea (Kelso Liber, i, nos. 139 –141; Holyrood Liber, nos. 33, 41, 44). William II also married Matilda, heiress of the Morville lords of Appleby, by whom he had the Ivo mentioned above and Robert, a favourite of King John who was presumably also the bailli of Caen and Rouen and the recipient of the Franco-Norman branch’s confiscated Norman lands in 1203.

The royal charter (Regesta Regum Scottoroum vol.2, no. 84) mentioned above lists William's lands as Hardingstone (Northamptonshire), Carriden (West Lothian), Horndean (Berwickshire), Elrington (in Haydon, Northumberland), Kirkhaugh (in Slaggyford, Northumberland) and Alston (Cumberland). Charter number 182 confirms lands in Bolton (East Lothian), Carriden (West Lothian) and Langton (Berwickshire). They are therefore spread between southern Scotland and England.

Research Notes

Power notes that there are two Vipont families who are probably related:

The evidence for the various lineages in France, Normandy, England and Scotland called Vieuxpont is difficult and contradictory. Powicke (1961, 351–2) recognised the distinction between the lords of Courville near Chartres, who took their name from Vieux-Pont-en-Auge, and the much less powerful lignage chevaleresque of Vieux-Pont near Argentan

Sources

• Summerson, H. (2004, September 23). "Vieuxpont [Veteri Ponte, Vipont], Robert de (d. 1228), administrator and magnate." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 28 Sep. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/28276
• Daniel Power (2004). The Norman Frontier in the Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries doi:10.1017/CBO9780511470561

Other websites:

• Phillips, Weber, Kirk & Staggs Families of the Pacific Northwest, by Jim Weber on rootsweb